- Motherfucker.
(guns shooting)
(intense brass music)
- This is Gina Prince Bythewood.
- Hi, this is Tami Reiker.
- Hi, this is Danny Hernandez.
- We're going to break down how to shoot a shootout.
(grunting)
For the kill floor, this is the first action sequence
in the film and we knew it was going to set the tone
of the film, set the tone of the whole film,
but also set the tone of what the action was.
So it really was like,
we got to go big and it's gotta rock,
but also, we have four people going up against 16.
How can that be believable?
That was kind of the directive that I gave both Tammy
and Danny is this needs to look real.
- First, we mastered in front to get the wide silhouette
of when they're all taken down.
And then we mastered from behind the mercenaries
as they come out and then Danny broke it down
into four sections so we could cover each person
in the old guard and really cover their fight sequence
without the other three having to go a hundred percent.
- We set the cameras up so that way,
we were just filling the other characters on the other side,
but able to focus on one or two characters
that making the way through
and then tying them all together.
(sword slashing)
(upbeat orchestra music)
(sword slashing)
- This film is absolutely an action film.
It's absolutely violent and we would be unapologetic
above the violence, but it would never feel
like the celebration of violence.
Each character, their weaponry in there,
their guns were specific to their character.
- (indistinct) had a sword.
Charlie's had the pistol.
Joe had the shotgun and then Booker had an assault rifle.
- For our mercenaries, we wanted to give them
automatic weaponry.
It is a lazy way to kill because you literally can spray
with multiple bullets.
(guns shooting)
But we never wanted our heroes to have that
or an audience to ever feel
that our heroes would ever behave that way.
In terms of the weaponry that we could use,
we wanted to make sure that they could eject clips.
We wanted smoke to be coming out.
We wanted that reality of it and not have to rely
so much on vis effects for everything.
As you're acting, like to hear the pops.
(guns shooting)
Like, it gives you something to react to.
If it's totally silent and you're working with guns
that don't give you any sound at all,
it's very hard to get that real reaction.
- When it wasn't firing blinds, the flashing is all in post,
but what we did with the mercenaries,
that was creating all the smoke
when they were actually firing the blinds and filling out.
So you can see if get hazier and hazier
as the weapons keep firing.
- I believe that we use the shells, like blanks,
when all the mercenaries were shooting at the old guard.
Everything else for the close quarter was via effect shots.
The reason for that is safety.
It's dangerous to have blank rounds fired
in close quarter combat.
- We never wanted to be pointing directly at someone
when you're using blanks.
So we had to be creative at times with the cameras as well,
but with the right angle, you never know
that the camera was actually pointed
just off to the side of the actor.
It's got to look good.
So we were able to get guns that could give us
the actual shells coming out.
That's such a thing that tells you that it's reality.
For us, it was always this balance of how much blood
and too little and it doesn't feel real.
And to the extreme where then it feels gratuitous.
So that's why it was so good to have the ability
to use squibs because that is what would really be
coming out.
That's what feels the most natural.
This squib is an actual packet that's attached
to an actor's body and there's a charge in it.
And when it goes off, it gives you that realistic burst
of blood and breaks through the clothing.
And it looks real.
And for all of us, Tammy, Danny, and I,
we wanted this to feel real, every moment, feel real.
(guns shooting)
- As a cinematographer ain a production point of view,
working with the AD, you only get so many times
you're going to be able to put a squib on an actor.
- You only get a couple shots at it
because an actor does feel something.
I'm not saying it's painful, but you do feel something.
So you wanna do with as few times as possible.
- So we took a lot of coordination of who and when
and all the cameras are aimed on that one person
because they were in their hats, they were in their suits,
they were on their legs.
- And yes, you can add things in vis effects
and vis effects have come an incredibly long way.
But there's nothing like having that real splash of blood
coming at you.
It's not something you can a hundred percent recreate,
especially for the shots that we shot
from behind in silhouette.
When they first get shot, that's all squib.
And it looks, I hate saying this,
but it looks amazing to see, you know,
the blood spraying in silhouette.
(guns shooting)
(upbeat Arabian music)
- I really wanted to demonstrate,
which I think it hasn't been shown on film,
the digression of martial arts from now
and progressing all the way down from 6,000 years
for how long all these warrior's been living for.
- So it was really digging into the choreography, the speed,
how fast our old guard could come up on these guys
with the automatic weapons.
(men yelling) (guns shooting)
- All the mercenaries are all stunt people
and then we had doubles for all the actors.
The doubles were probably used for maybe just one or two,
just a wider shot takes, but everything else
was just all the actors doing all their choreography
with all the stunt players, the mercenaries.
- And we would rehearse, meet back at the monitor,
and the operators and Gina and myself
would really work with Danny
on seeing if the hit was believable.
- It's all dependent to where the cameras are positioned at.
So if the camera's positioned on certain areas,
then the punch or the strike has to go across a certain way
and it has to be wide enough so that the audience can see.
And then what happened when becomes a little difficult,
because of a dance, we actually have the camera moving
that certain areas.
So if the camera's moving to a different position,
you're gonna have to adjust the punch for that angle
to sell for that camera.
When it comes to body hits, though,
we do make a little contact in the body.
We had all our stunt players wear protective gear
on the certain areas where they'll be doing some impact.
And also, we had a special weapons made,
like were a softer, softer rubber.
So that way it would able to not take out our guys.
(sword slashing) (upbeat Arabian music)
- It starts with the vision and what we wanted
for these action scenes.
(weapons clashing)
The process is to look at a lot of films.
Look at what's been done before.
There was a lot of Asian films we looked at,
but really, the raid was one of the templates.
(yelling)
Zero Dark Thirty, one of the templates.
(screaming)
Because of the way, the reality,
that both of those films brought,
but also the creativity within the action, as well.
- We did a lot of research
in all the different kinds of martial arts.
Had a very good team.
I was collaborating with Gina and Tammy
on their vision of what they wanted to see.
And I would show them choreography pieces,
what you say put together to see
if that's what their vision, what they were looking for.
- In going into this, I kept hearing stories
and I would ask, how long did it take
to shoot this scene in John Wick?
Or how long did it take them to do
that fight scene in Mission Impossible?
Like, you're always wondering and you hear like,
two weeks and Tammy and I were like, oh, we have three days.
How are we possibly gonna do this?
- Gina and I story boarded together
and that really helped us with our plan
and we referred back to the graphic novel.
- It was about how can we make this believable
that four people with pistols and archaic weapons
can defeat 16 mercenaries with automatic weaponry.
(sword slashing) (intense Arabian music)
- Gina and I in some of our first conversations,
we discussed how we wanted the old guard
to be a very grounded, pretty gritty, natural,
and we wanted to shoot all the action sequences hands out.
And we made the decision to shoot with the Alexa 65
for the incredible image quality.
And there was a bit of a challenge there
because very heavy camera.
We stayed with the handheld theme
and keeping it more at eye level,
using longer lenses to feel that reality,
to feel like we're in there.
We're a part of it.
(grunting) (guns shooting)
- Absolutely crucial in terms of our vision
for the look of the film is shooting with long lenses.
And that's not normally done with action sequences
because it's much harder to hold focus.
So that's why in most action sequences
that you watch people, it's shot from a wide angle.
A lot of times from a wide angle lens
and lot of times from a low angle.
Where we wanted to be in it,
we knew we wanted that aesthetic.
and we wanted the action scenes to look different.
(weapons clashing)
- I worked with Paul Kirby, he production designer,
to create a lighting that when those two flood lights
come on, that those are the only two lights.
There was no lights on stands or on the floor
so that the cameras could pan 360 degrees.
- Tammy and I have wanted three separate looks for this,
which was the darkness, then the brightness
when the lights come on and they're revealed
and they know that they've been basically screwed.
- Motherfucker.
- And then being able to change the lighting within that,
once one of the lights goes out.
- And then also working with Paul to make those beautiful,
super shiny, high gloss floors,
where you get that beautiful reflection.
That shot when Andy is first down and we had a flashlight.
We put flashlights on each of the guns
as they're coming down the stairs and she drops her gun
and the flashlight shines right in her face
and that's when we see her eye open
and her first time to see her regenerate.
- At the end of the day,
what we're capturing in the cameras has to be great.
It has to look real.
It has to be believable.
The actors, we have to believe, are really fighting.
(weapons clashing)
Thank you very much for watching.
Check out the old guard on Netflix.